Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Ophiuchus (Oph)  ·  Contains:  NGC 6240
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NGC 6240, Gary Imm
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NGC 6240

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
NGC 6240, Gary Imm
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NGC 6240

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Description

This object is a small faint merged galaxy located 400 million light-years away in the constellation of Ophiuchus (The Serpent Holder). This tiny distant object does not have any Astrobin image entries (except a Hubble image). But it is a cool object so I thought I would give it a try.

The remnants of the recent galaxy merger are evident in the strange star cloud loops and arcs. This galaxy was one of the objects featured in the Starburst Galaxies article in the March 2018 Sky and Telescope magazine. A pinkish starburst region is seen at the center of the merged galaxy, just to the right of the wide dark band which spans across most of the object.

Detailed X-Ray observations have concluded that there are two closely spaced black holes at the center of this object, spaced only 3,000 light years apart.

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